Sacro Bosco's Sphaera mundi

Sacro Bosco's Sphaera mundi
Johannes Santritter, 1488.
JOHANNES DE SACRO BOSCO (fl. c.1230-1240). Sphaera mundi. –PUERBACH, Georg (1423-1461). Theorica nova planetarum. –REGIOMONTANUS (1436-1476). Disputationes contra Cremonensia deliramenta. Venice: Johannes Lucilius Santritter and Hieronymus de Sanctis, 31 March 1488.

The fundamental astronomical textbook of the later Middle Ages, with early multi-color printing. Sphaera mundi is an introductory guide to the geocentric universe, composed for use at the nascent University of Paris and based on the newly available works of Ptolemy and his Arabic commentators. The present copy, as frequently, is accompanied by the astronomical lectures of Georg Puerbach, and a work by his pupil Regiomontanus. It closely follows the 1485 edition by the innovative printer Erhard Ratdolt, which is considered the earliest example of multi-color printing. Santritter, who had previously worked under Ratdolt, credits himself with the design of the illustrations here—largely copies from 1485, and including diagrams printed in red, black, and ochre, as well as a new allegorical frontispiece. The abstract diagrams, although perhaps simple to the untrained eye, “constitute a sophisticated visual and pedagogical program … designed to inculcate skills in mentally visualizing the structures of the cosmos. Even more important: these images were created to train students to manipulate mental images” (Crowther). This work imparted to centuries of students these vital skills, which here reinforce the geocentric model but would later be used by Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo to turn the universe inside-out. HC 14112*; BMC V 462; BSB-Ink I-505; Bod-inc J-183; Essling 260; Sander 6663; Klebs 874.11; Goff J-407; ISTC ij00407000. See also Elizabeth Savage, “Color Printing in Relief before c.1700: A Technical History,” in Savage and Stijnman, Printing Colour 1400-1700 (2015) and Kathleen Crowther and Peter Barker, “Training the Intelligent Eye: Understanding Illustrations in Early Modern Astronomy Texts” in Isis 104.3 (2013).

Chancery quarto (189 x 142mm). 69 leaves. First heading printed in red. Woodcut frontispiece, many woodcut diagrams, 8 of which are printed in red, black, and ochre, large woodcut initials, woodcut printer’s device on final leaf, manuscript pagination beginning with 56(narrow dampstain at top margin of final gatherings, occasional very light soiling). Modern brown morocco, speckled edges. Provenance: effaced contemporary inscription on final leaf.